Silver and Gold
by beaner.weener
Summary: "Freak," they all say. Nerd. Geek. Bookworm. Teacher's Pet. Antisocial. Freak. It doesn't bother me. Code, translation, reading between the lines. That's what I do all the time. It's what I live for. It's who I am. I am Annabeth Chase. I am not alive. I am not dead. I am information.


**Prelude**

The date is July 15th, 1998. Two parents, one holding and the other huddled over a small mass wrapped in a blanket. A doctor is nearby.

Not the doctor that delivered the mass. Another doctor. A neurosurgeon, a scientist. She was born in a lab.

As soon as the parents allow it, the child is hooked into a heart rate monitor and is whisked off to an operation room, neurosurgeon trailing not far behind.

"I wonder if this is right," says the mother.

"This is what we've chosen," the father replies flatly.

They are both aware that the child will need to be moved around quite often. They will not be able to take care of her for all her life. Stations will be set up all across the United States to keep the others from finding her.

She is legal, but illegal.

"We never even named her," whispers the mother. "It's because she'll never really have one, isn't it? She'll need to change identities constantly."

They wait in silence.

Hours later, the child is brought back into the room.

She has done well.

The surgeon speaks with the parents. "Her operation has gone perfectly. We've replaced the part of her brain that controls intelligence and the thought process with artificial counterparts. She will age as normal. Implanted in her mind is a pre-understanding of her situation, the crucial part she plays in this branch of the government, and the urgent need to keep this a secret. Move her as needed." He hands the parents a folder. "Here is the contact information of the stations she is to go to. The password is "silver"." The father writes it on the inside of the folder, in pencil. "Good luck. You will be discharged tomorrow."

With this, the surgeon and his team of nurses is out of the room, leaving nothing but a worried mother, a careful but careless father, and a silent child.

Fast forward about fifteen years. Two-thousand thirteen. 2013. 2000+13.

That child, well, that child was me. And now…

"Freak," they all say. Nerd. Geek. Bookworm. Teacher's Pet. Antisocial.

Freak.

It doesn't bother me. Code, translation, reading between the lines. That's what I do all the time. It's what I live for. It's who I am.

Numbers, meaningless to other humans, are crucial to me. Calculations and statistics are what I do best. My mind is like a computer, able to gather input simply by looking at an item. Sizes and relativity and distance. I see the people who put it together, the people who will tear it apart. My mind is clockwork.

Every cloud has a silver lining. I was born to find it, no matter how small.

I've never understood why the typical description for moonlight is silver.

Look at a moon, and you will see white. A pure, clean white. Nothing like you can get on earth. The craters? Well, they're grey.

Grey is not silver.

Grey is the color of my eyes, the color of pencil lead. The color of long nights spent studying, reading, practicing.

Silver is the color of jewelry. Novelty. Beauty.

They are not the same thing at all.

The moon is white. Practical, innocent, pure, intelligent. White is the hottest color, but also the coldest. White is greed, mercantilism, giving, and trust. White is a contradictory term with only one word.

White is who I am.

Not my skin color. White, being a contradiction in itself, a miracle to the human eye, corresponds perfectly with myself: my birth, survival, mission, mind.

I am numerous things.

But mostly, I am white.

My name, at the moment, is Annabeth Chase.

I am not alive.

I am not dead.

I am information.

**Uhm, okay, please don't expect more than a chapter or two out of this. I don't quite know where I'm going and writing makes me wince. I thought I should publish something as I take down Happy and How to Save a Life, though. HEY HEY HEY IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM PM ME AND I'LL GIVE YOU MY USERNAME BC YOU ALL ARE PERF OK**

**Disclaimer: I own the Percy Jackson series, because I'm **_**totally 100% **_**a man by the name of Rick that lives in Texas. *sarcasm overload***

**Also, I, Rick, did not mean in any way for the term "I am white" to be racist. **

**Binna didn't, either.**


End file.
